Thoughtripper Mines
by NachyoChez
Summary: My second fanfic for Shadow Era, this one features Serena. The plot was derived from the original Prologue, which has since been scrapped, but it's nice to have things like this around for posterity.


A blade in flight makes the most peculiar sound, its tip spiraling over hilt, as it slices through the air. It was almost like a whistle, hinting to its target that a kiss was inevitable. Almost sad, Serena mused to herself, that the sound was lost among the alarms, shouts of warning, and incoherent screams of the undead abomination facing her down from the end of the tunnel. She ran forward in the path of the dagger which kept the enemy's eyes on her instead of the airborne weapon.  
Her distraction worked; the guard had never seen the danger and with it buried so deep into the socket of his eye she doubted he would be seeing much ever again. Though it would have been a lethal wound to a human, Keldor's servants had sacrificed their humanity in favor of their putrid god, Seroth. The wound no doubt hurt, but the thing was far from dead and Serena intended to capitalize on her advantage.  
As the beast roared in pain she stepped between the crook of his arm and chest, drew a pair of daggers, and proceeded to rapidly stab into the exposed soft tissue of his shoulder. Something like blood, only black and smelling of rot, spilled from the ever expanding wounds. The massive axe it had been carrying weighed the arm heavily, and when combined with the severed flesh of the shoulder it took scant moments for the arm to separate from the body. It took no thought for Serena to forsake the first dagger in the bones of the joint, spinning the other so she could slam it down into the back of her adversary's knee, driving him to the ground.  
It might have been far from dead, but she was far from finished. Gripping the massive double sided axe the brainless oaf had favored with both of her tiny hands, Serena used her slight body weight to bring the weapon up. The motion impacted the weapon's former owner hard enough to knock him onto his back, but only the flat of the blade had connected. There was no smile on the young infiltrator's face as she brought the weapon to the apex of its swing, only to allow it to fall once more, but the beast wasn't smiling as its head was separated from shoulders either.  
If you'd asked Serena a week ago what she would be doing that evening, she wouldn't have ruled out very many possibilities. Not even standing at the bottom of an enemy mine decapitating a zombified Keldorian warrior while in search of some mystical power they had discovered seemingly overnight was out of the question. After all, she was the king's personal shadow and had fought against all sorts of absurdities in the past. Her orders a week ago had been cryptic enough as well; discover the source of Keldor's newest power and destroy it. If that failed then bring something of it back for the scholars and mages to study.  
Serena had found herself in no shortage of informative people. Refugees from their king's newest rampage had set her on the right track, and it hadn't been difficult to find his new followers once she'd ventured to their side of the border. Some of them had been very helpful once plied with gold, others had needed a sterner metal to loosen their tongues (along with various vital organs). Finally she'd discovered the location of this mine, but it seemed none knew what was being mined for.  
She'd known it would be tough to infiltrate, but she hadn't expected the building materials of the upper lattices to be so easy to break. Her fall had been simple enough to roll out of and would have been little more than a minor annoyance had she not landed directly in front of a guard. He died quick enough, but not before shouting a warning to his comrades to sound the alarm. So here she was, in an unnamed event outpost, looking for something she had no clue about, with no reinforcement possible, and no actual escape plan.  
Her only chance now was to fight her way out, but she would not abandon her mission. Too many lives depended on her success; besides that, Amber would never have let her live it down anyway. She just needed to find whatever it was they were after down here and make a mad dash for the exit. Crates and mine carts were strewn everywhere so Serena dug in.  
Most of what she found was useless rocks, though some of the crates contained precious metals. She collected small samples of each, with a larger sample of the gold going into a separate pouch, to be tested by the geniuses back home. The rest of them contained only large chunks of some dark and bland crystal. They looked completely innocuous and were too big to fit in her pouches without weighing her down, so she turned away from them to keep searching.  
A glint from the fallen guard caught her eye, and dagger appeared in her hand instantly. The body remained motionless but she could swear that the fist sized crystal on his chest had been glowing faintly just before she looked. Serena made her way to the body cautiously before lifting the crystal and inspecting it carefully.  
She quickly discerned that it was the same type that had been in the crates, which still told her nothing about what it did. Regardless, it was small enough to be carried without weighing her down and every sample helped. As Serena moved to place it into her bag, she heard a sound that was all too close for comfort. In her search for the new weapon she'd quit paying attention to the multitude of enemies her previous battle had revealed her presence to.  
Small wulven and some man-like creature with tentacles spewing from it's mouth surrounded her; their greedy eyes just waiting for the chance to strike. Undaunted, she drew several daggers from the pouch reserved for special needs and unleashed a volley of them into the crowd. Her aim was unerring; before they had time to react most of them were dead. Those that remained already felt the effects of her poison and were not long for this world.  
Serena knew any respite she'd gained from the quick and brutal slaughter would be brief. The mine was teeming with creatures wishing to inflict terrible suffering on any human, and she lacked enough throwing daggers to convince them all otherwise. Eventually their numbers would overwhelm her; escape was her only shot.  
Crystal still in hand, she ran full burst up the tunnel. Ignoring anything not directly in her way, donating copious daggers to the bodies of anything that was, she found the path easier than expected. She'd done this kind of work too long not to catch on when none of the minions from below bothered to chase her. If they felt there was no need to chase her down then something was coming to do the work for them. Considering she was already on her last dagger it was a rather troubling thought.  
As if in answer to her thought a bright, warm light ripped through the air around her. Her dodge had been purely out of reflex and had done nothing to shield her from the intensity of the heat. Parts of her leather armor were charred and she knew the skin beneath was going to be tender, but that implied she had some strategy to defeat the monstrosity before her.  
She knew Keldor was using some newfound magic to infuse various objects and beings with power, but seeing it face to face was another matter altogether. It had probably been a tree before magic burned away its leaves and branches but now it bore arms and legs with a face formed of the very energy that had mutated it into a grotesque behemoth.  
In its hands formed another orb of the raw plasma she had barely dodged earlier. Even though she knew it was coming, Serena was not sure she could take another of those blasts. Unless some miracle handed over a power equal to what Keldor had used to create this thing she was in trouble. Her adversaries had been right to entrust this beast to dealing with her, she needed help.  
Answering her thoughts, the crystal in her hand flared to life. Its full surface pulsed with a bright light once, and then went dim once more. Serena was almost doubtful she'd seen anything at all when a slight movement in the shadows caught her eye. Its form was smaller than a full grown man but far too human for it to be another concoction of these insane experiments. From its back the newcomer withdrew a pair swords and smiled wickedly at her. Before she had a chance to question its motives, the shadowed creature winked and faded into the blackness.  
Her mind reeled. She'd spent too much of the precious moments she had to plan focusing on the shadows and not enough thinking about the impending attack. Turning back to the task at hand, Serena faced down the plasma born creature with something less than enthusiasm. It was too late; there was no dodging the energy that was boiling in its palm. Then, just as she braced herself for a quick death the energy simply vanished.  
The behemoth's head rolled back as it howled in pain. She watched in awe as the small 'man' that had caught her attention before stood upon the head of her enemy; its twin blades were buried deep in the eyes of the would be attacker. The weight of her newfound ally was enough to cause the head of its victim to roll and reveal a now unguarded neck. Serena hadn't often worked with a partner, but the message here was clear.  
Springing to her feet, the young rogue blazed forward at the highest speed her body would allow. She leapt into the air, kicked off of the monster's knee, spun, and used the momentum along with her final dagger to sever the flesh like bark open like so much butter. Warm energy spilled from the gaping wound, but Serena safely rolled away from the falling corpse once she landed on the ground once more.  
She turned to face the strange being that had saved her only to find it had vanished as quickly as it had come. There was no time to puzzle over it though; the rest of the mine's denizens had heard the death throes of their guardian and already made their way her way. Fighting was out of the question so Serena shoved the crystal into what little space was left in her bag, sprinted for the exit, and vanished into the shadowed night.


End file.
